


Holidays! In! Space!

by IrreWilderer



Series: “L’habit ne fait pas le moine” [9]
Category: The Outer Worlds (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Love Confessions, Mars Nanners Were Better, Sharing a Bath, Sickness, Smutt, Space Flu, real talk, repost now complete
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:27:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28496820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrreWilderer/pseuds/IrreWilderer
Summary: When Minister Clarke’s mansion proves impenetrable, the Unreliables take a mini-vacation on the Groundbreaker. Hot dates, warm tubs, and nanners abound!
Relationships: The Captain/Maximillian DeSoto
Series: “L’habit ne fait pas le moine” [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1540777
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A big thankies to bonymaloney for a million things, but mainly keeping my interest in this fic alive. Also for the journal thing.

Archie couldn’t figure which fussed her worse: her furiously congested chest, or the stretched-funny legs from screwing Max for the last fourteen. It made sitting at the Unreliable’s mess table a formidable bitch, no matter the funky position.

_Oh, Law._ Archie groaned, adjusting her keister in the seat. _Do not. Think about._ **_Funky positions_** _._

As soon as Monarch and her moons were sucking dust n’ what-all from their ship’s wake (ADA shaking a leg for Byzantium), Max and Archie beat boots towards bed. Putting the clumsy threesome behind them (while Max got comfy behind _her_ ), they weren’t discussing their drink-addled doings. Archie’s over-fraught feelings at being reunited with Max were forgotten, just as Max’s screwball, passive aggression were ejected from those brainpans present.

That’s what struck her, once she’d sobered. Graham didn’t touch her; _couldn’t_ touch her. Every time he’d moved to, Max made his way between, meaning their fare-well fuck hadn’t been as robust as it might’ve. Moreover, it gave strange climate to Max’s demeanor. His concern for her after; his generosity during: seemed the man couldn’t settle whether he was jealous of Graham, or swaying personal conduct to compete with the Iconoclast’s warmth.

Either way, such peculiarity was pondered on no longer. They had places to be, and quotas to fill. Canoodle-crazed sprats couldn’t hold a candle to them. Because them quotas: they had to be... they were...they...

_Don’t say that. Laws, don’t even_ **_think_ ** _about nothing being filled. Just sit there, sip your juice, sneeze into your elbow if you gotta, and for heck’s sake don’t think about—_

Max, about to speak at the head of the table, glanced her way for a quickly second.

_Ffff. Him and those stupid lips._

Archie’s dreamy sigh toppled into a cough.

“So.” Clearing his throat, Max stood taller. “Despite my best efforts, all means of slipping unnoticed into the Earth Minister's home have passed by _—_ for the moment.”

“Phft. Yeah.” Felix pouted in his seat, slouching and scowling. “ _Your_ best efforts, sure.”

Archie had created a cave of her arms. Her sickness-plagued noggin nested within, upon the table. “Play nice,” she called, breath befogging the scratched surface beneath.

“Yes, Mister Millstone,” Max said, failing to restrain a hearty huff. “Despite **_my_ **best efforts, the Minister no longer has need of a new chef. The perimeter guard positions have been filled, and, according to a recent appraisal of his assets and properties, Minister Clarke’s holdings are in top shape. No matter how I play it, any additional staff added to the house roster will arouse suspicion.”

“I’ve got an idea!” Propelled by the might of genius, Felix catapulted into the conversation with a sunnier disposition. “The Minister don’t have mail, right? No problem! We _write him a letter_ . Tell him everything wrong with this colony; open his eyes to the corruption, and _—_ and the **mismanagement** . Maybe we turn him; get a man on the inside. Just like in _The Masked Marketeer_!”

“Heck, it could say whatever we wanted. Not that that’d be the point.” Ellie’s brow fixed on Felix and twitched. “Wouldn’t work, anyways. Anything crossing the Minister’s desk probably needs at least seven different confirmation stamps. Loads of effort, no promise of pay-off. Why make more work for ourselves than we have to?”

“There **is** a scheduled breach to his sanctum to take place next week,” Max continued, ignoring the interruptions. “Having created a false identification cartridge for Miss Quaice, she is now eligible to make Clarke’s bi-weekly SLUT appointment.”

Archie sat straight, her sinuses cleared by incredulity. “ ** _Excuse_ ** me?”

“A ‘Specialized Language’ Utilization Technician. Apparently Chairman Rockwell found Minister Clarke’s terminology lacking in his reports, so he’s hired him a tutor.” Max’s expression glazed with interested confusion. “Curious, as Clarke is supposed to answer only to the Earth Directorate, and, quite specifically, _not_ the Chairman.”

Sniffling a smidge, Archie ran a hand over her slacks. Not an itch of stitch in her whole closet was Byzantium-respectable. “But do I look the part? Could I seem a specialized language utilization technician?”

“Your _speech_ has always dressed provocatively,” Max observed, generous in a way. “It’s a position you’ve all but been asking for. I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

Captain DeSoto, then sighing, shed light on the last corner of the heist. Every Unreliable member, himself included, stuck out as sorely as a pink slip in one’s performance evaluation. Their presence in Byzantium would only set precedent to their personalities, and they needed to be new, forgettable, and forgotten if they were to crime without a hitch. Their plumbest option was to stay scarce until the day arrived, out-of-the-way being preferable.

“You mean... “ Parvati’s words crept out, cagey as a child peeking around a corner. “You mean like a holiday, Vicar DeSoto?”

“In a manner of speaking.” Max cast his sober yet good humoured line-of-sight around the table. “Suggestions?”

Many options were fumbled at, but only one felt right: the Groundbreaker. Until port, the crew spiffed up. Day-packs were put together; shoes got spit at and peashooters were polished. Parvati ambled towards Archie’s quarters, wondering which goggles best beautified her overalls set, while Max and Felix disappeared suspiciously soonly upon docking. With Parvati offering The Grandliest of Tours to Nyoka, that left Ellie and Archie to land at the Lost Hope.

Their drinks were cold. They paid extra for that.

“Any plans beyond sating your whiskey deficit?” Archie asked, elbows supporting her sick-sleepied frame.

The player-piano abandoned quiet ditties for a corporate jingle. Ellie, to the raucous contraption’s right, sat with her back to the wall, eyes roaming. She’d never fess to the sappy recognition about her mien upon spotting familiar faces, but like a star wink, at the edge of space, it was there.

“Nah. You know me, Arch: planning is for the respectable, and that I ain’t.” Taking a bored drink of her beer, Ellie shrugged. “Might check in at the medbay, though. Take on extra work. Wanda likes her freelancers, and she pays well for what she likes. So long as Tennyson’s got the budget.”

“Surprised the chop shop isn’t—I dunno... autonomous? Self-sustaining?”

“Privatized?” supplied Ellie. She shook her head. “Nope. Besides the HHC office, Junlei is queen of the whole, damn hill.” With this especial sip of beer, she toasted. “Good on Parvati for landing _that_ saltuna is all I can say.”

“They’re having their date tonight,” Archie reported with a conciliatory nod. “Or at sixteen-hundred hours, anyways. Plenty of time for Parvati to work herself into a froth.”

Twas a dangerous line to tread—that between fond concern and cavalier scuttlebutt—but Miss Fenhill weren’t one to shirk risk. Swigging her drink to half went-away, she asked, leaning forward, _“speaking_ of bodily fluids. What’s up with you and Max?”

Archie choked. “ _Wow_.”

“I’m assuming you’re bumping uglies again. The vicar’s tried pretty hard to butter us up since the whole Fallbrook fiasco, but shore leave? That’s generous.”

Archie busied with scratching off her bottle’s label. “How do you mean? He’s been brown-nosing?

“Well,” Ellie rationalized, “he grumbles less when we tease him about the jobs he’d be better at than a preacher. You know: con artist; serial villain. Tossball equipment smuggler because the sticks fit up his ass. Vacuum unit seeing as he sucks the fun out of a room. Plus he played a few rounds of Architect’s Design without the usual sermon.” Pausing, she added, “and there were a few things on Byzantium.”

Archie half-nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“He helped Parvati pick out an outfit for her big date. Turns out ‘man of the cloth’ isn’t just a figure of speech with him: Vicky has some very big opinions on clothes. He also took me to see my parents.”

“Didn’t think he had boot-licking in him,” Archie admitted in surprise. “Besides the fanciful flattery time to time. To get what he wants.”

“Either it’s remorse over lying to us, or him trying to fit in the captain’s seat. You know—keep morale up? Doesn’t matter much to me, I’m getting paid either way.” Ellie’s expression bedeviled. “ _Although._ He’s **definitely** a better wage-negotiator than you were. If he’d’ve been haggling Culkelly over that Stellar Bay navkey, we’d have been on Monarch like that.”

Knowing well her short-comings in the captainish persuasion, Archie frowned. “Oops?”

Without warning, Ellie asked, “you still love him?”

Just as quickly, Archie answered, “probably not.”

Reasoning that she was going for a ramble to source some nanners, Archie gave-up her seat. Ellie’s doctorly leanings laughed, explaining that nothing in a nanner was going to kick her cold. Going on to prescribe a list of pills and powders to forestall this and those symptoms, Doc Fenhill meant well, but not a thing from her sawbones bag had helped so far. Archie wanted a walk; Archie wanted _something_. A nanner seemed that, at least.

Heading towards hydroponics—where the Groundbreaker grew crop for the sake of fuels—Archie spotted Felix and Max walking hither, their trajectory suggesting previous patronage of _Goodall’s Good Sport Sporting-Goods_. It seemed their most amicable of shared moments together, something of a smile plastered about the younger man’s face, which made Archie instantly unsettled.

“Hey, boss,” Felix greeted, a tossball blocker cradled in both palms. “You like?”

“It sure is that,” Archie nodded, glancing at Max. “You two bonding? The vicar and upstart finally seeing terms?”

Max harrumphed. “Not exactly.”

“Vic, here, owed me a new one. Broke mine a few weeks back. Have to admit, I didn’t expect him to make good on his debt, but here we are.” Felix clamped a hand square on Max’s shoulder. “Y’know, DeSoto, sometimes you don’t entirely suck.”

Max hardly affirmed with a dry “thanks,” before asking Archie, “where are you headed?”

“Around,” Archie shrugged.

Following a short word of farewell, Felix left them to wander. 

The neon, commercial-crooning chaos of the Groundbreaker’s main levels evanesced behind the doors of an overly-laden elevator. Over twenty locals saltuna-canned themselves into the itty lift, with Max and Archie mushed together in the back, belly-to-belly, awaiting their stop. The lower decks were so unlike its technical superiors. What came first was worlds different than what came after.

Dark, and cool, the lower levels lacked the company kiosks kept to mollify Board mandates. Merchandise there was, but it were freerange; home-made. Backbay-born bastards n’ barons sold what they’d crafted; there was knit and patchwork, bathtub gin, makeshift weaponry better left to rusting, and sprat-skin variousings (boots, vellum, and the like).

Earth had never such hodge-podging of small-time sales; there weren’t private business allowed, and, as Archie supposed, Halcyon didn’t authorize for it, either, so to see such enterprise was extremely interesting. In her mind, cutting from corporate ought to look more akin to Iconoclast living, yet these folk took what the Board had taught them, bunched it in lawless a ball, and threw it back in the HHC’s face.

Archie, a-glow, could rove for hours amongst the trash and trophies. But, alas, as she’d said to Max some few seconds before, she was here for,

“Nanners?”

Archie nodded. “Yep. A bunch of ‘em.”

Repeating Ellie’s previous rhetoric, Max bedecked the patrony with a personal touch: dismissive scoffing. 

“Unprocessed fruit? Ppft. Your ailment will not benefit from **that**.” He began to proselytize. “Nature’s role is to challenge, and strengthen, mankind in its attempts to kill us. Foodstuffs lacking in natural panacea is a perfect example. It is why we must introduce additives, and antibiotics, to the majority of what we consume. To survive, we must better ourselves through science.” Max glanced at the stalls, grading product. “Medication will do the trick, Auntie Cleo’s being the most reliable. Immunisol, if we can find it.”

Archie frowned. “Okay. Sure. Science yay, nature nay. But I still want nanners.”

Hydroponics offered a measly sales table that touted their not-much surplus crop, yet it was the freshest to be found. Bit cartridge a smidge diminished, Max bought the sought-for produce and put it down on a wayward table, alongside a locally-brewed fizzy drink. 

Smelling of growth stimulants and soil, a singular nanner was partly peeled. The fragrance was wonderful; it lingered, filling the belly with the need to taste, and relish, and eat. Archie’s throat, sore with sickness, newly ached with ravenous leanings. But, mooncalf that she was, Archie slipped the length between her lips, and repeatedly rammed the inside of her cheek in an instance of phallic hilarity.

Max’s eyes bulged. Glancing around, red-faced embarrassment had gone to his ear-tips. Then, erupting into a sudden, sharp guffaw, he bent his head, forcing his humor into a covering cough.

“You know,” Archie educated while Max shook off his chortling, “on Earth, these things are yellow. _All_ yellow. Yellow _all_ the way down. And less… chalky.” Another bite; another swallow. “Apparently on Mars they make ‘em red.”

“You were a farmer before your lay-off, as I recall,” Max mentioned, humor fading. “Is that what you cultivated? Yellow all-the-way-down nanners?”

“Nope. Knew a man who did, though. We shared space, for a time. He brought home a good, firm, thick one every night.”

Max’s brow piqued. “He supplied you with stolen produce?”

Archie grinned. “That, too.”

The vicar rolled his eyes.

“He disappeared,” Archie continued, barely registering her own scattered blabber. “One day, after his shift, he just didn’t come back.” Inspecting that which she held, Archie attempted to scry truth from the thing—to see her past and make sense of it. Those months back, beyond a blanket of cryo-sleep, sharpened and hazed simultaneous. However, regarding the facts of the matter, “that’s just how it was. Back home. On Earth. _Yonder_.”

“Perhaps he felt taken advantage of,” Max teased. “A man is more than his fruit basket, Archimedes.”

Archie forced chuckling. “Oh, it wasn’t that,” she cautioned. “Happened a lot, and I don’t mean to me specifically. You did what and when according to corporate. Like here. They wanted you working the other side of the world? You didn’t even bag your belongings—you just scoot to where they said. And corporate moved folk around a lot, if you know what I mean.” Sighing, she slipped into that life like it were a company uniform: kept too close at the neck, choking about the collar. “Means-of-communication depended on your contract, too. Position and status determined whether you could use the aether or, I don’t know, a carrier-pigeon, I guess. Believe me: couriers delivered their dispatches half the time, so yelling real loud was your best option once you were laid-off. Or unemployed.” Archie’s voice came whisper-soft. “Like I was.” She looked at her lap. “Finding people was hard.”

“And these disappearances were a common occurrence?” Max asked.

“Happened to my mom,” Archie confirmed, stronger in inclination. “Happened to… I’m not going to name ‘em all, we’d be here an hour, but yeah. I knew many who just…” She shrugged. “ _Left_.”

As Archie squished a sad bite’s-worth of nanner about her mouth, Max took a soda sip. Some of the sound beyond the bubble of their heavy parley seeped in. A loader rumbled by, laden with boxes. Glass broke elsewhere, and people laughed. Archie felt cold, wondering for the first time if she, indeedy, had run _from_ Earth rather than **to** Halcyon. Deeming that over-drama, however, she dismissed it. She was here because she was.

“Were you aware that repetition is one of the Board’s most reliable tools of administration?” Max spoke musingly, hazel eyes twinkling. “‘Training’, as they’d term it. Though I believe that to be a loose interpretation.”

“Careful—starting to sound like Graham.” Tossing the emptied peel, Archie roused from her dire for his sake. He was trying—she could tell. ”What’s your point?”

“That you’ve been trained to assume no expectation of stability. Due to these repeating disappearances on Earth, you lack stability yourself. _Commitment_.”

Archie batted her lashes. “Worried I’m going to jump ship again, captain?”

“Shouldn’t I be? Yourself and Miss Holcomb have seemed happy to—theoretically, at least—maroon four times since leaving Monarch. There was the empty mansion in Byzantium; you talked often of a domicile in Stellar Bay. And the two cargo containers for rent in the auxiliary bays, which, in your words, required but a few throw-pillows and it would be home.”

Archie snickered. “Oh, that’s just me nesting. I see a place and I _nest_. Dream of what could be.” Smirking, she wondered, “that scare you, DeSoto?”

Max snorted. “We’ve negotiated no partner contract. Though…” His lip thinned. “Perhaps we should.”

The sarcasm on his face scarced, sobering to strictly consideration. Even the delicate wrinkles at his mouth smoothed in thorough-thinking.

It were to be a serious conversation, and Archie took no umbridge. After all, a partner contract differed mightsome from a marriage-minded one.

“Not having one **_is_ ** awfully criminal,” teased Archie, her deliberating mug matching his. “I’d have very few terms of obligation, truthfully. My only caveat is— _hm_. That every Sunday I get a nice, warm back wash. From you. Call it Soapy Sunday. You miss it once, we’re done.”

“That **is** a euphemism, is it not?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Max’s tone came as a parent’s when reminding a child to tidy their toys. “A partner contract _would_ come into conflict with any outstanding agreements. Any agreements on Earth, I mean.”

“Now he asks if I’m hitched!” Archie couldn’t help throwing her head back. ”No, Max, I never put my name in the marriage-pool. If you wanted to ball-and-chain it”—she clarified, for he looked confused—“you put your name in with your company, and they assigned you a spouse. A bit more proactive than here with all your ‘can I pretty-please, Mr. Rizzo, marry so-and-so from accounting’.”

“So… We should, then, consider it,” Max restated. “Draw up some sort of agreement.”

Gathering grit, Archie hummed. It was a gripping prospect, no doubt. The vicar had been correct in his curt character assessment—she never expected stability, t’were true—and no situation of happenstance better blazed light upon that actuality than her assumptions about _them_.

Prior to Fallbrook—prior to **any** kind of discussion—Archie had anticipated an expiry date to their relationship. As much as she’d presumed morning breath and getting stuck sleeping in the sticky spot, she’d also presumed it would end. A signed-on, stipulation-weighted contract, however, would allow **her** to control that end this time. And Archie suspected Max partialed to that, too.

He’d planned on returning to the Unreliable once dealings with Chaney were done. He’d planned on returning, and not once had he asked her to wait for him. Max had leaned into that expiry date as much as she—his hesitance to commit were less blatant, but it was there. A contract would smooth-out questions they’d likely been sitting on, afraid of exposing too much of themselves.

Archie answered with a head nodding vigorously, “absolutely—let’s do it,” while soon after hiking her day-pack up her shoulder as they readied to depart. “S’pose I’ll mosey to the ship,” she mentioned. “Parv is probably starting her date now. Hate to disturb her, but…”

“There’s no need.” Max adjusted his holster which had gone hinky with sitting. “I’ve procured apartments for the crew to afford Miss Holcomb and Captain Tennyson a modicum of privacy. Quarters 208 through 210 in Deck B’s housing district.”

Archie was impressed. “How’d you fandangle that?”

“Why, I simply informed Captain Tennyson on how excitable the crew can be. And that she may not get a word in, edgewise, at the kitchen table. She suggested the domiciles, and we came to an agreement.”

Archie was suspicious. “Which is?”

“That I keep you hooligans off the Unreliable for the next 16 hours.”

Leaving their garbage sitting on the table, they spurred along.


	2. Chapter 2

At loggerheads with Byzantium custom, the Groundbreaker’s denizens didn’t rightly appreciate those who yanked their yoke. It was a point of pride to spurn anything capital-swell, and, as such, the Deck B domiciles, reeking with stateliness, were rejected by the station’s righteous anarchy. This meant it was pin-drop quiet upon walking down the corridor, and quieter still within those fancy-pants walls.

When Archie’s jaw hit the floor, the sound echoed.

“ _Laws_ , preacher. Look!”

Metal wainscoting stamped with leaf motifs; rich drapery of cobalt blue hiding wire and workings in the wall, which whirred a low hum of comfort. Brass chandelier; burnished accents: plush and respectable, it hardly bunched one’s britches to see these fancified rooms collecting cobweb. The week’s rent alone could feed a Backbay family for a year (or four).

The kitchenette, while small, was well-appointed. The water closet was its own room. Able to bear two adults shoulder-to-shoulder, the bed further boasted embroidered blankets that Archie man-handled, lovestruck, in the dim, reposeful light.

“Why all this pomp?” she wondered.

“At a guess?” Max hefted his rucksack onto the mattress. “These were once reserved for Board affiliates.”

“It’s move-in ready is what it is,” Archie surmised, marking nick-nacks for future pilferage. Putting a hand to her mouth, she pantomimed hollering across a great distance. “That’s me _nesting_ again, vicar! Did you hear? I’m _nesting_. Keep your pants on.” She winked, laughing at herself. “Or don’t.”

Observed luxury was mightsome different from opulence owned, even if for a eve. Archie walked harder on the floor, her heels haranguing the boards because they could. Her shoulders shook out stress, having, for the first time in a long time, the room to manage it.

Whilst expanding exploratory efforts towards a stuffy, fluffed sitting area (the cushions seemed ‘bout to burst), behind her Max started disputing with a length of hose. Attached to _something_ in the water closet, it was dragged along, the end thrown, with a clang, into a large, wrought-metal—

“It’s a tub! Oh, I’d wondered what that was.” Afore, Archie had perplexed, for its locale nearer the kitchen suggested a cooking vessel of sorts, though the size leaned towards ‘laundry appliance’. “Haven’t seen one of these since I was a kid. Void, we **are** kings tonight.”

With the hose hooked to the water closet’s shower head, the tub began to fill, pluming steam through the room. Archie breathed deep, convincing the wet, wonderful warmth to go deep by the lungful within her chest. Her congestion lessened (though a little).

“This is swell of you, Max,” Archie noted, stripping scarves and belts, her thick-soled boots kicked. “It’s not quite a tossball stick or fancy duds—nothing I can take with me—but my present is very, very nice.” Taken to toe-tips so that she might fix a smooch upon Max’s cheek, she said, against his skin that smelled lovely, “thank you.”

“The water’s for me,” Max informed without missing a beat. While loosening buttons at his wrist, he wondered, “what’s this about a present?”

“Ellie and I were thinking. We had a _theory_.” Leaning against the couch-arm, Archie was sluffed of all but high-waisted slacks and a tucked tunic. “That _theory_ is you’re lickspitting after lying about Chaney. You helped Parvati pick out threads, I guess? In Byzantium? Then there was Felix, today, with his toy. So **my** gift, which I await with trembulating bosom, would be…?”

“Elsewhere.” Working his shirt front, Max didn’t look at her. “I was not under the impression that I need buy my way into your good graces. I’d believed you’d forgive me for… what I’ve done.”

“Oh!” _Weren’t expecting_ **_that_ ** _self-sorry so immediate_. “It’s—yeah. I have. It’s fine. Just being a brat, Max, don’t mean nothing by it.” Nodding at his chest, she plied letching as apology. “Them’s my real present—right?”

He proffered a comely figure with only the last button of his shirt left. The synthed linen, cinched at the bottom, put him in a world between staid and undress. It was the look of leaving lately for work—or of dragging home after, and out of uniform. Somewhere between the unclad of copulating and full-dudded daywear, there was a very personable place: one occupied by lovers, or those who shared space. Intimate, and common, it had Archie lousy with comfort. And Max—it seemed to have gone farther than only ease him.

Meandering to his rucksack, he retrieved a leatherbound. “I was going to ask that you read this eventually. I suppose now is as good a time as any.”

Archie took the book. It weighed nothing. Like the room, if stripped of finery, it simply held what was. _The Journal of Maximillian DeSoto_ was plainly penned about the first page, the inner hen-scratch familiar enough that interpretation weren’t needed, and Archie balked, having been given incalculable insight as Max conceded immeasurable liability. Lest his entries contain itemized lists, or charts, his heart was here; his weakness.

Archie read out from the last pages.

“...costs exorbitant this side of Scylla. Refuelling station docking-fees akin to theft. Hawthorne’s reputation remains a hindrance—change of Unreliable ownership a current impossibility, however… Therefore stoicism may be the Pillar upon which all others lean, yaddah yaddah. Today I—”

_Today I’ve done the despicable. I have hurt my Archimedes._

Turning to the man now as starkers as the journal would have him seem, Archie’s nerve leathered, old, and worn. “I don’t need to see this,” she stated.

“I’d like you to,” Max answered, placing his folded pants atop a dresser. “If you’re willing.”

Knowing any book of science—and, therefore, this, his measure as a man—must build on what came prior, Archie still allowed the pages to part where they would, starting her during Max’s time in Edgewater.

He rankled. The town’s ignorance ran akin to sacrilege. Such stupidity, in the face of OSI precepts, was a sin, and he was surrounded by sinners, which made a sinner of himself, Laws of Uniformity not a dictate to be ignored.

(Starting with ‘At Tartarus,’ the succeeding paragraph was struck through.)

In the first fiscal quarter of 2349, Vicar DeSoto newly resolved to exemplify stoic reason, a figure sought for in fear, or bellied up to with acclimation. But not a townsfolk dunder could see beyond their serials. Turning to rummaging through ruins, prospecting for heretic texts became excuse to spar with ruffians. An exercise in survival, it was—an offering to his faith, canticles found in bruised flesh.

Eventually, Max stopped. Having satisfied himself with his broken fingers, he stopped. Distraction in pain reminded him of the whip—lashings apparently focused the mind—and he wrote of seeing marrow glob on the soil; of aching so badly as to be bed-bound, accepting that he deserved it in his fragility; in his irresolute piety; in his weakness.

Hasty and derogate, Archie sighted the inaugural scrawling of her own name. Max had commented ‘ _frustrating though Qwace is, her grasp of intelligible dialogue out-paces all I’ve seen in Edgewater._ ’ After an inventory of the month’s personal expenses, he complained of a cracked rib, citing _‘it’s borne easily enough, yet anyone captaining a crew should be capable of keeping them hale. To a point.’_ He’d scratched that out, then repeated, _‘to a point. It is not indifference—were it so, the apathy would see her religious. But it is, predictably, ineptitude. Lack of observation seems Miss Quice’s greatest quality, and cowardice her worst.’_

Like lightning from the aether, there came a shift.

_‘Quaice has declined my tutelage, citing no need. That I’ll always be present, sidearm at the ready, seems the general impression. Circumstance permitting, I’d oblige. The alternative—unfortunate.’_

Four days later, _Her sympathy is unfathomable. She insists marauders deserve their lives, though what life that is…._ Added in the margins, with an arrow towards the previous statement, an edit was made. _Moot point; inapplicable._

_The Pillars preach contradiction between rationality and compassion. Intellectualism—and the advantage it provides—does not permit sentimentality; however, Archimedes argues with more acumen than many in the Order. The novelty of an analytical mind complemented by a kind heart is fascinating._

Then,

_A failing of the fourth Pillar: my oldest sin. Mother and father did not understand my passion, yet Archimedes forgives it. This has led me to consider. While not a true facet of base emotion—though so it would seem to your typical layman—protection, assured by attachment, fosters survival, if this argument is allowed to progress along its inevitable course. As a tool of evolution, affection, therefore, so clearly provides_

_Fucking void, it’s a mercy the Order cannot read this._

His embarrassment was clear.

_She (scratched out). Archie (also struck)._

_Archimedes has said she could_ ~~_care for_ ~~ _love me,_ Max finally managed to wrangle. _She’s convinced me that it matters. That my old arguments for truth-seeking, despite the source, matter. That I m_

The woman stared at the abandoned entry. _“Oh.”_

Earlier, as they’d snacked so casual on nanners and fizzy drink, the man had smucked the nail square. Archie housed no assumption of stability. Earth wisdom was to foresee naught than what was in front of one’s kisser, or to trust only as far as what courage she could swill. The lovers in and out of her life: it had been common like weather. Yet, here, Max was offering something more; an else which granted what even a partner contract could not: a whole truth.

That truth was: he was lonely. That truth was: he was sad. He was sorry, and more sworn to her than formerly sussed. It confuddled, for this soft language was beyond her learning, both in the Milky Way and here. They’d **_always_ **tested each other. Offering just enough sweet words and whatall to trick the other into giving/wanting/seeking more, it’d been their foreplay. Sighs, smooches; confessions: half-accuracies which had made plain Archie’s yenning him physically, then caring for his well-being laterwards, but where was a body supposed to go from there? The middle of no and where, and as a certitude of life she’d understood that.

So when Archie asked “why’d you give me this” while handing back the journal, it was because such an offer was beyond the proverbial lightbulb blazing on, booning comprehension.

“My intention was not to offend,” Max said, taking the pages quick. “After our tryst with Bryant, you asked what more could I need than your body. I believe you miscalculated the source of my fascination. It is your mind that has drawn me to you.”

Archie nodded over this. “Makes sense. Think you were ‘bout driven to either mad or murder by boredom in Edgewater.”

“You have **no** idea.” Following a quiet moment, Max hesitated. “You understand, don’t you?”

Archie sniffled. “I don’t know.” Her voice was heartbreaking. “‘Certainty’ has never been aught but a fancy, high-faluted word for me. About as useful as ‘tax break’ or ‘compensation’. You know the universe: things are set in stone until they ain’t.” She whispered, honestly, “I wish I had your faith, Max, I do…”

“Are you suggesting you lack certainty?” Max all-but interrupted.

That particular query were loaded like a public transpo shuttle, scuttling from the skids to downtown’s subsidy request office: heavy, ragged, and desperate. Archie shrugged, crossed her arms, and ambled whilst stating “I need to get out of here” though she clarified, almost immediately, “not **here** ” (the room, which she motioned at) “but **_here_ **” (her head) while roving. Rifling about her medication bag, Archie doled out four Focusitol, as Max offered a glass of water, all en route for her stomach after a long, singular swallow.

As the pharmaceuticals found flustered, fuzzy places to fill up, Earth melted down; clarified; concentrated into one real concern. This reduction in fear reminded her whence came the worries; turning to Max, it were overt that he needed to know wherebouts his journaled candor had landed. The moments were mounting on his mein, adding up to skepticism, as his mouth thinned, crows feet deepened, and she had not yet acknowledged his offering.

Archie’s head tilted. “I’ve never expected forever from the men I’ve been with, Max. I don’t know how to have more.” 

Such abounding, self-sorry dramatics might’ve coaxed a dismissive simper if not for Max’s expression. Square-jawed, scowling, he turned away.

“Nor do I,” said he.

Archie shook her head.

_Kids. Kids lost and stupid in the great, black void._

“Guess that means we do this however we want, then.” Arms folded at her chest, the woman tossed a bit of swagger in her step as she sallied close. Wouldn’t be the first fandangle she fell into ass-first, though t’would be the pioneering trip to caring about it. In Max’s verbiage, he’d shown that being unalone mattered; that Earth was chewing her dust, meaning she could spit out all the bad taste and waste which that cramped, uncaring place crammed into her chassis. Halcyon had advertised new beginnings, and perhaps, seventy years in, they were settled to deliver.

At her swishing sashay, wry immodesty raked Max’s face. “Have you any suggestions?”

Archie tip-toed hither, whispered in his ear “let’s get in the tub,” and walked on.

Her bare back met his chest, the water laving her low breasts, while one leg propped up on the tub’s side, sticking out. Max’s meandering hands moved not towards steamy purpose; he gathered her hair behind her ears, his fingers gracing along shoulders and arms in long caresses, enjoying her for the sake of softly freckled skin instead of the usual supple reasons. His nose nuzzled at her ear. His breath washed her neck.

“Hmm.” Archie, eyes closed, fool-grinned. “‘s nice, Max. This is all very, very lush. Much the pampering.” Sliding a smidge downward, her head pillowed on his chest, her wide hips wedging snug between his thighs. She played with his knees, which, _oh_ , she noted were scarred by star-like flecks, age-lined, and handsome. “Wish I’dda known this was the kind of pampering ship captains had dibs on.”

“How is your throat?”

Peeping up at him, the hot water had flocked to droplets about Max’s skin, his hair tousled with the wet, and his cheeks reddened with the heat, as well as a tad puffy, making him look older. _Handsome, handsomest bastard around..._

“Better,” was her answer. “This steam’s really helping. Feel miles better than this morning.”

“You appear much improved, as well.” Max smirked. “When I awoke, I thought it was a raptidon in bed. What with the snarling, and ferocious spitting.”

“Felt like I’d had a whole sprat stuck in my sinuses, so that’s not far off.” Purging a great truth with sighing, Archie’s head lolled. “Void, Monarch really messed me up.”

Max cleared his own throat. “Yes. For all our progress with Mr. Blythe, that planet proved rather the large mistake. One I’d prefer to forget about.”

Her tummy twinged. Archie sat up, turning best she could towards him. “Graham?”

Max snorted. “Absolutely not. I mean…” He huffed. “You know what I mean.”

“You’re still trying to make up for that,” Archie realized. “For Chaney.”

“For hurting _you_ .” With his elbows resting on the tub’s edge, one of Max’s hands reached out to brush her jaw. “It was the farthest thing from my mind. Or it would have been, had I been capable of thinking clearly. One look at that degenerate’s face, and all my memories of prison came flooding back. I couldn’t _—_ ”

“It’s alright _—_ you don’t have to explain.” Dipping in, Archie kissed at his right eyebrow, reading, afterwards, a shock of confusion. So fussy in regard to reasoning and intent, he rarely understood her easy acceptance that no one was entitled to accountability, lest you were corporate, making the rules. “You can, however,” Archie continued, laying back once more, “keep trying to butter me up.” She wriggled sleepy against his nipples. “All this peach-polishing suits me fine.”

“It is hardly boot-licking when restitution offers a break-even,” Max pointed out. “I’d characterize this as akin to a negotiation, or trade.”

Private smiles and maneuvering ‘round, Archie settled in his lap, face-to-face, while the water heaved, finding the floor in no-quiet fanfare.

“Yes, yes. That old chestnut. _Quite_ the bargain, I know.” Rolling her eyes, Archie leaned in, letting her weight perch whole on his groin. “How come you always seem to yoke this”—she jerked her hips—”with an act of finance? You suggesting something, vicar?”

“Why, as a matter of fact,” Max confirmed. Impish vim varnished his stone-cut features. “They _say_ it’s the oldest profession. I’m simply offering its due respect.”

Despite their comfortable canoodling in an atmosphere as quixotic as it got, the water’s warmth, alongside her body’s heat, itched her skin rather than summon a sexy, sexy smolder. Mayhaps it were that they’d buckwiled twice that morning, but the standard urge to cram her crannies with his parts wasn’t as sonorous as usual. However, Archie knew no other dance, and got to stepping.

Gathering herself up, she slid back and forth, her clit padding across his lax dick until the sensation started worming fuller between her legs. Eyes closed, body focused, her bits and bud were spoiled by a slowly swelling cock. From nowhere, a nugget niggled brainward, and Archie looked at him, brow piqued. 

“Wait. Which profession are we talkin'? Preachers or— _ffffrig_ —prostitutes?” A swivel of her hips scooted her from ‘sorta horny’ to decidedly handsy. Grinning, her fingers sunk into the water. “Same thing, I guess,” she added.

Max snorted. Then he choked. Archie had slipped him in.

Much of the tub water was gracing the ground before long. Archie conjured the earlier, steamy dreaminess of their snuggling, allowing her orgasm to grow slow while the water dulled certain, silver-lined sensations. She tried to simply enjoy the sluggish pushing of his cock in and out her pussy, as an itch that is scratched at gratifying length, but Max’s _hands_ : they roamed again without intent to flick, or tease, and it was **worse**. He cupped her cheek, all saccharine, while the other hand raced and traced through with her hair, following the strands to their end, after which that same hand held her shoulder steady, thumb stroking circles.

_“Max…”_

Oftentimes their screwing left them occupying separate headspaces, but whatever inspired Max’s generosity with his journal had him staring her down, down to where he was. The colour in his eyes was black ink, writing something starved, and intimate. Grasping, yes; possessive, almost. Archie whimpered as both his hands sought her waist—he urged her a little quicker, though no deeper, and Archie shivered as he filled her, filled her, stretching her right, _fuck_ , head fallen back, _oh,_ **_Laws_** _._

Her thighs felt like glorious, weightless liquid—if liquid could ache with desire plus muscle cramps. Wrapping her arms around Max’s neck, not a word was traded, but they’d done this before: the give, and the take. And right now, Archie needed to take a rutting break.

Max pumped into her, grunting with every care-laden thrust. 

“There’s no pain?”

“No, it’s good.” Hiding behind her closed eyelids, her lips skimmed his earlobe; tongue tip darted out; traced the shell-like edge.

“We can— _hng_ —move to the bed. If you wish.”

“Mm-mm. Keep it like—oh, void, there it is. _Max…_ ”

Bliss took her up, but only so far. So, fingering her clit, Archie finished it, the tumult and release leaving her with a lovely, emptying echo. Humming at Max’s ear, she felt him follow. As he did, the man stared overhead, his taut neck become a long column of muscle and visible veins. Archie really loved that: that one, singular, lickable chord of sinew.

Drying her with a plush towel, then himself, Max corralled them toward the elaborately embellished covers. Archie’s fingers raked through Max’s sporadic chest hair, which was at her eye as she pillowed there, on his breast, by his heart, the thrumming steady. Max was decidedly dead to the world, silent until he wasn't. When he spoke, though, it was nothing light.

His words lurched off his sleep-slowed tongue. "You said, once, that you loved me. As much as you could, knowing I was to leave.”

“Which was quite the tickler, seeing as you knew you weren’t leaving at all,” Archie cut in, a lot more alert.

Clearing his throat, Max stirred, marshalling enough sense that guilt was able to follow, which it did, like the half-starved calf. “I had to… lie. I never believed you would accept my means of dealing with Chaney. At least, that is what I’d convinced myself of.“

Archie considered that: the mental calisthenics of convincing oneself of wrongs; of impossibilities; of hope. So often had she done such on Earth that she’d carved new realities from loss. A body could say thems were lessons, and another could call it the way of things; however, Archie, for the first time in a long time, wondered about when the truths had still been lies, told for the sake of coping, and she recalled, suddenly, the silhouette of her mother on that last day. Her shirt—that button-up one—the one with the birds and clouds: it smelled of old detergent. Always.

“Then I guess I had to lie, too,” Archie said.

Max moved beneath her, shifting to meet her gaze. “Do you mean… How I dealt with him? Then you don’t approve?”

“No, no, I do,” assured Archie. “If you’ve got a right to feel as you do, you’ve got a right to back it up with actin’ as you see fit. That’s not what I meant. I was lying about loving you based on knowing you were leaving.” She swallowed. “Truth is”—she looked away—“I just loved you.”

Max’s voice softened. “And could you again?” 

Archie only lay out on his chest once more.

“What you said on Monarch—your disinterest in a big affair—”

“I was scared!” Archie clarified louder than needed. “It’s been my own, personal slogan all my life. Sometimes you say a thing so often, you believe it. Nothing wrong in that. Makes things easier.”

“Then…?”

She couldn’t. Not when all those men who’d walked away were so hovering about her head. And not when it didn’t matter. Not when folk were free to do as they wished, or willed, and she hadn’t the right to deter, or argue, or to beg, or _don’t make a scene, Arch_ _—you knew this wouldn’t last_ _._

“I said it last time,” she whispered in a half-sob.

Max was not quiet now. “I love you, Archimedes.”

She gasped.

“Oh, sweetheart." Pulling herself up, Archie stared, laughing at her breathlessness, her tears, and at the theatrics of it all. _How was that so easy?_

"I love you still,” she said.

As her lips locked on his, and precedent were pondered at, the promise of a healthsome, slap-happy second round seemed rising (amongst other things). Archie was in Max's lap once more. She was marveling at his moans, much the louder than previous. Elven seconds on, Max was moving to press her against the bed, intending to top, when Felix Millstone was demanding doors and vicars heed some seriously screwy facts. Apparently the Halcyon Parcel Service had made delivery for Alex Hawthorne, the bundle sent by way of a broad named Lex. It was waiting on the ship, and starting to reek.


End file.
